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On Politics: Augustine, Aquinas and their synthesis
[This is a summary of our discussion of chaptes 7 and 8 of Alan Ryan’s On Politics. It was written by Jotun Hein]
I read the chapter on 14th century [7] and we had an intense discussion about this and the Aquinas chapter. The discussion was very motivating and people really had a lot of expertises and thus comments that highly supplemented the book.
The main questions were: “Why Aristotle returned with such force in 11-13th century”, “What was the consequences of the Platonism of St. Augustin and the Aristoleanism of Acquinas”, and why did these two thinkers become so dominant after their own life time and what were their ideological purpose.
Chapter 8 covered Dante, Marselius of Padua, Barrolus and Ockham. I only knew Dante’s Divine Comedy and “the new life” about his love for Beatrice, but in this chapter “De Monarchia” was discussed where he argued for a strong king.
I decided to browse Summa Theologica but was deterred when I discovered it was 4000 pages.
In the discussion managed consistently to refer to “The 10 Commandments” as the “The 10 Amendments”. I apologise (to whom?? Maybe Richard Dawkins…)
I wonder what I will think of “On Politics” when I get to the end.
We will meet again close to November 30th and discuss chapters 9-10-11
On Politics: Aristotle, Cicero and Polybius
[This is a summary of our discussion of chapters 3 and 4 of Alan Ryan’s On Politics. It was written by Jotun Hein]
Aristotle: Politics is not Philosophy [40 pages]
I still find the book a bit hard to discuss as much of it is a narrative so one has to extract concepts. But it was fun to talk about Aristotle more emperical approach, his invocation of what was natural in explanation of who should be a slave, the role women. He hand many considerations on how to avoid Stasis/Gridlock.
Aristotle clearly loves to classify – constututions, animals and causes. From modern perspective some can see naïve but 2 millenea ago, this empiricial curiousity was radical. Bertrand Russell (that Alan Ryan calls one of his role models) called Aristotle overrated, but said it wasn’t Aristotles fault.
Cicero and Polybius [30 Pages]
Again interesting with interesting observations on what was the casue of the success of Rome, the nature of a good constitution, an optimal wealth distribution, checks and balances, the advantages of a mixed constutution. Cicero’ emphasis that an unjust law is not a law.
Given the amount of turmoil/coups/executions in Roman history, I would have had little inclination to study the principles garanteeing an ideal state had I lived then.
Since these two are early in Rome, the could only comment on the first 1/3 or Romes history.
I didn’t know Cicero had hands and head cut off and placed outside the Senate.
Although the book is long, several thinkers are not mentioned: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Plotinus. It would also have been interesting to know more about non-western views to politics. But the book is already a 1000 pages.
The amount of texts that have been lost and where we only have fragmentary knowledge is truly frustrating. Most of Polybius large history of Rome [Rise of the Roman Empire] has been lost. At least 3 works related to politics – On Duties, On the Republic, On the Laws – have survived. If somebody knows a book on the genealogies of such manuscripts it would be fun to read.
On Politics: Initial reflections, Herodotus, and Plato
[This is a summary of our discussion of chapters 1 and 2 in Alan Ryan’s On Politics. It was written by Jotun Hein]
I will not try to summarise the chapters, but rather focus on what still puzzled me after reading/discussing them.
I look much forward to read this book. And from dipping into it, I think it is highly readable. Thus 11 months from now I will know much more on the History of Political Thought than I do now. It looks as a narrative and thus easy to read, potentially at the cost of technicalities. I am interested in how political thoughts actually is observable in political institutions and processes, thus the empirical aspects of Politics, and suspect the book is weak on that.
Although a 1000 pages, this book is clearly short compared to some of its precursors.
Chapter 1 – Herodotus [30 pages]
has very little description of political concepts, but is mainly about Greek [especially Athen’s] war history from about 480-312 and almost as much about Thycudis. The main wars were the Persian and Peloponesian Wars and Athen’s misguided imperial adventure in Syracuse. It would have been nice to hear more about the actual electoral process, the number of elections and the issues. Not that there aren’t interesting issues here.
Describes the sized of Athenian population and who could vote; about 12-15 percent. This clearly was a radically large fraction, but there must have been voting assemblies before.
Chapter 2 – Plato and Antipolitics [40 pages]
Focused on the concept of justice and; explored through the two writings of Gorgias and the Republic. I find the technique of dialogues interesting and puzzling. It is clearly fun and readable, like when when Socrates is told that he shouldn’t be allowed to go out without his nanny. But dialogues seems limited in what it can present or rather longwinded since it does not present facts or tenets, but the establishment of the truth or falsehood of a single proposition. Since there has been so much linguistic analysis of single sentences, I asked Ian Holmes recently for references on the analysis of dialogues, which he posted somewhere on my facebook page. Many concepts here that doesn’t go down well with a modern reader. It is harder to be a wrong-doer, than to be done wrong against and Plato is clearly anti-democratic.
HEIN RESEARCH 